, the pathos of it! Did God help them that day? Ay, and
for many a day after. And may He forgive all people whose lives
overflow with plenty of everything, and who fret their souls for petty
ills.

Through the winter the snow piled up round the shanty where lived the
little fair-haired woman and her little girl of nine years and two
babies now, thinking, talking, dreaming, weeping, waiting for the
spring and the home-coming of the father. One of the horses died, and
the other was sold. Their places were taken by oxen. "And the oxen
are really very good; I like to work with the oxen," says the little
man, with heroic Scotch philosophy and invincible content. He cannot
have the best; he will make the best of what he can have. Again, may
God forgive us who fling down tools because they are not the best, and
refuse to work, and fret instead.

Those days are all gone, but they are not yet passed out of the life of
this family. They have left their stamp on heart and character of
these steadfast, gentle people, for they are a part of all that they
have met.

After tea I am told that I have not yet seen Katie, and the manner of
telling makes me feel that there is something in store for me. And so
there is. I am taken across a narrow hall and into another room,
spotless as the kitchen, the same white walls, white floor, and dainty
curtains. This is Katie's room, and there upon a bed lies Katie
herself. I have come into the heart of the home.

Katie is the eldest of the family. She is the little girl of nine that
stayed through the long winter with the mother, and helped her with the
babies inside and the beasts outside, and was the cheer and comfort of
the house, while the father was away in Winnipeg, brave little girl
that she was. She is now twenty-four, and for the last nine years she
has suffered from a mysterious and painful illness, and now for
eighteen months she has lain upon her bed and she cannot rise. We all
have in us the beast feeling that shrinks from the weak and wounded;
but when I look at Katie there is no shrinking in me. Her face has not
a sign of fretful weakness. It seems as if it had caught the glitter
of the home, of the pewter covers, and the old silver teaspoons. It is
bright. That is its characteristic. The broad brow is smooth, and the
mouth, though showing the lines of suffering--what control these lines
suggest!--is firm and content. The dark eyes look out from under their